I guess with none of the combatants still alive people's memories are fading. The conflict that took 16 million lives -- one out of every 100 people alive -- is one nobody is very proud of, and now that there's nobody left to honor, the living would just prefer we forget the whole thing.

If it was up to me, I'd revisit the horrors of the war and use it as a cautionary teaching tool. But that's just me.

The most widely accepted number, 620,000, is about two percent of the population. That is military deaths only. The number of civilian deaths is less well known, but is estimated to be from 50,000 to 100,000.